Samuel Beckett’s second published novel, Murphy, opens with the eponymous protagonist having tied himself naked and with seven scarves to his rocking chair, swinging back and forth in the dark of his room. With this ritual Beckett’s well read, intellectual character retreats from everyday reality, relieves his body to set his mind free: ‘for it was not until his body is appeased that he could come alive in his mind’.2... Read more

Pleasure in Making (2016) by Valérie Mannaerts is the latest outcome of three decades of collaborations between the architects Robbrecht and Daem and contemporary artists. The artwork was made for Victor, a café in the Brussels arts centre BOZAR (Centre for Fine Arts) that was recently refurbished by the architects and named after Horta, the architect of the renowned Palais des Beaux Arts. Upon the invitation... Read more

A space without natural light, architect Louis Kahn once stated, does not deserve to be called architecture. With and through light a building becomes real; it becomes inscribed in the cyclical time of the seasons. This thought seems too obvious to be defended. Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to museums. The bulk of museums being built today eschew natural light.... Read more

The carefully argued text by William Mann, who served as supervising architect for Witherford Watson Mann Architects, is conceived as a meticulous historical reading of the Whitechapel complex. The text characterises the attitude of the designers, who clearly immersed themselves in the history of the construction and the institution in order to contribute a new layer with a full knowledge of the facts. T... Read more

In his contribution to the sixth edition of the Flanders Architectural Yearbook, Ákos Moravánkszy focused on the design of the delivered Concert Hall by Robbrecht en Daem. He points at the main references used by the architects: vernacular examples, the paintings from the Dutch Masters and the Flemish Primitives, Heimatliteratur of the 19th century, their idiosyncratic appropriation of Gothic and Baroque archit... Read more

In reaction to the design of the Garden Pavilion in Vosselare, Juan Muñoz addressed his letter “Astimado Amigo...” to the architects. The text was translated into Dutch and English for their monograph Works in Architecture (Werk in Architectuur), while the hand-drawn drawings of the pavilion façade decorated the cover. The design and the letter occupy a special place in the work of Robbrecht en Daem.... Read more

In this extract, which preceded the realisation of The House Where It Always Rains, the artist evokes a ritual carried out by a small community in the Andes, during which it uses the broken wooden fragments of houses to build “the house of the forefathers”, after which the transparent and symbolic construction is set on fire. Muñoz’s erudite description evokes the sculpture that was erected in 1992 on the beach at Barcelona.... Read more

Estimado Amigo..En la ciudad de Londres, en 1881. Robert Louis Stevenson, a la edad de 31 años, que ya entonces fuera capaz de imaginar una isla llena de tesoros, mientras contemplaba en la pared de su cuarto un pequeño mapa escolar, escribio: “Yo no intento parecer un poeta, tan solo un hombre que habla. No uno que canta. Perdonen esta apologia; pero no quesiera encontrarme delante de gente que saben de musica y hacerles suponer que yo no se... Read more

Our relationship to the architectural modernity of the last 150 years grows increasingly attenuated. How much has changed in just a few decades! Buildings once touted for their absolute newness survive in our sprawling, chaotic cities like ageing grandparents, posing irksome problems: how to maintain them? how to afford them? can they accommodate contemporary needs? can we contrive new uses to justify their existence?... Read more

The following text is part of a contribution to the catalogue of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture, titled Cities, Architecture and Society, and was written while the architects were working on several vast projects within historic city centres. The article was illustrated by project images of Leopold De Wael Square in Antwerp... Read more

What people can expect from buildings is not a question that can be answered once and for all, primarily because their mutual relationship changes constantly. Architecture – valuable and life-affirming architecture – is perhaps more expensive and more inaccessible than ever, not so much because the price of materials and building costs are increasing, but because not enough is being invested in buildings accessible to all. That is why, in a... Read more

The architecture programme of the ‘library’ seems old and dated. It is related to the materiality and the culture of the book, while everyone knows that the new information supports operate electronically. Moreover these new media store and disseminate not only current information and new pictures and texts. The entire old intellectual culture can – in principle – be transferred to new media... Read more